


so come on and let me know!

by putorius



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Missing Persons, both of those relationships are not until later, stranger things au lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-02-09 07:28:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12883020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/putorius/pseuds/putorius
Summary: “How long has he been in that position?” asked Blue, dropping her backpack in the corner of the room.“Twenty minutes and fourteen seconds,” said Ronan.“You’re counting?” asked Blue.Ronan waved a stopwatch. “He was like this when I got here, so there’s uncounted time.”“We should move him,” said Blue.“I wanna see if he falls over first,” said Ronan.---otherwise known as stranger things au????





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this thing needs a TON of editing, more than the cursory glance i normally give my fics. i wrote the entire thing out of order and its gonna take me a while to really rearrange things, but i thought it would be cool to get the first chapter out there? its kind of nice to have a whole fic written for once in my life. if only i already had it organized.

First and foremost, Noah Czerny was lost. Deeply, deeply lost. His skateboard - dark blue, stickers glistening in the dew of the late night - was grumbling beneath him. He skated harder, thinking only for this vulnerable, eerie moment, that speed might help ease his confusion. His board hit gravel with an angry crunching sound. His skateboard shuddered and twitched with the force of the collision and the unfortunate angle at which it occurred, and Noah was sent tumbling onto the ground.

“Shit,” said Noah. He pushed himself up with the balls of his hands and hissed when his skin - which had been scraped raw during the accident - dug into the pavement. “ _Shit_.”

Prior to twenty minutes ago, Noah hadn’t known you could get lost in Henrietta. It was small, mostly flat, and mostly open, and gave the general impression that if you stood at one end of main street and squinted, you could see the other end clear as day. Noah had tried this on occasion, but he mostly just got sun in his eyes. He didn’t know there were back alleys and secret roads through the woods, places you could get turned around where everything looked exactly the same in every direction. Noah had become well-versed in crevices and out-of-the-way junctures to hide in over the past year - it came naturally when you started befriending stoners and skaters - but those were all places you could stumble upon. They were dips in the fabric of Henrietta, and anything that hid in them could be shaken out of the woodwork with a feather duster. Noah’s current situation was more like being stuck in a painting - all horizon at the end of the road, forever.

He tried to examine his hands in the moonlight. They were grey-blue now, dirt and dust from the road mixing with the off-color tone of his skin. He thought about Gansey, how his hands were always tan and warm. Even in the moonlight, the blue in Noah’s veins stood out like a sore thumb.

Noah flexed his hands. His thumb actually was sore. He shook himself and tried to clear his head, but when he closed his eyes, he only felt worse. There was something scrambling behind his eyelids.

“Christ,” said Noah, trying to blink it away.

Falling off a skateboard and injuring himself had frightened him, and the dull anxiety that had been working its way under his skin since he had realized he was lost escalated itself. Noah looked around. He had become convinced there was something other than him out there, lurking or creeping in between the trees and shadows. He tried to snap himself out of it.

He tried to remember what you were supposed to do when you were lost like this, but he could only come up with things you were supposed to do during the zombie apocalypse. He wracked his brain for any useful information, but he couldn’t see how building a shelter with pine needles covering the ground or how sucking on rocks to quench his thirst would help him now. He felt like one of the Boxcar Children.

He considered going back the way he came and retracing his steps, only he wasn’t sure which direction he had come from. He was on one long, wide road lined with trees. It was dark. He’d become turned around in his fall, and he suddenly felt stupid and pathetic for getting so confused. This was supposed to be a shortcut - a way to get to and from Monmouth and elsewhere without going directly through town. Truthfully, he should have known better than to listen to Jonah when he was high.

Noah huffed and kicked up his skateboard. He couldn’t wait for daylight, and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be any easier to tell where he’d come from in the light. At his best guess, town was directly to his left - into the woods. He’d been trying to go around them - who knows what sorts of things swim through the trees at night - but it looked to him like the fastest way back to something he recognized, even if (according to Jonah) it was not the fastest way between Monmouth and Fox Way.

On his first step forward, Noah shivered. Something like snow was starting to fall over one half of the road in giant, fluffy flakes. It was suddenly colder than he remembered the forecast predicting. Hell - he was in short sleeves. He shivered and felt the skin on his elbows and forearms start to twitch with goosebumps. Pointedly, he resisted the urge to rub his arms. If he ignored the cold, he thought, maybe it wouldn’t be happening to him anymore.

He gripped the skateboard tighter. His knuckles went red and white around the edges. He took another step.

Gravel crunched under his heels, but he could barely hear it. Something was swimming in his head - ideas, fear, the scrambling behind his eyes - and was taking up all of his focus. There was something rumbling nearby, and for a terrifying and beautiful moment, Noah thought it might be a car. His chest heaved with the opportunity to hitchhike his way out of the situation and cut his panic off at the root, but then the rumbling came closer. There was an angry wet sound off in the distance. There were no headlights on either end of the road. Whatever was making that noise was certainly not a car.

The rumbling came closer. Then, faced with the opportunity to run inside unfamiliar terrain with a slim chance of hiding or the chance to stay on the open road and remain fresh meat, Noah leapt into the forest.

From the very first moment, the forest was unforgiving. Leaves and debris congealed on the ground and stuck to Noah like quicksand. Bushes and stray branches made every attempt to trip him as he ran. There was an inescapable screech somewhere behind him, and Noah was suddenly faced with the realization that there is probably little louder and more enticing to a predator than running prey.

_Oh God,_ thought Noah. _It knows I’m here. I let it know I’m here._

He ran even harder. Everything in the forest seemed to want him dead or caught with the notable exception of the trees, which began to bend and sway, opening up a single path before him and leading him through the foliage. Behind him, Noah could hear the splintering and groaning of wood and the rustling of leaves, and he hoped dearly that this was the sound of the trees covering his path and not of them being destroyed.

Something small ran in front of him - a creature, slick looking and vaguely amphibious. Noah jerked back, either to avoid stepping on it or to get out of its very dangerous way. He stumbled backwards, hitting himself against the trunk of a tree. He stepped in something grey and upsetting. It made a disgusting squelching sound around his foot.

“Shit,” said Noah. He tried to pull his foot out, but whatever he had stepped it was reluctant to release him. It was peculiar - the sludge itself was thick, the crust crumbling and giving way to the oozing, sticky center, but there was nothing after. Open air. Noah had kicked his way into a covered hole, and it seemed unwilling to give him up.

“Gross,” said Noah. “Gross, gross, shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_.”

The forest was silent. Wind ran through the trees. Noah leaned back against the tree, figuring that he could, at the very least, catch his breath while he was stuck.

There was an uncomfortable wet noise near his left ear, the sound of a mouth being unveiled. It was followed by a low growl. With every hair standing up on the back of his head, shivering and tingling with fear, Noah turned to look at the creature.

\---

“How long has he been in that position?” asked Blue, dropping her backpack in the corner of the room.

“Twenty minutes and fourteen seconds,” said Ronan.

“You’re counting?” asked Blue.

Ronan waved a stopwatch. “He was like this when I got here, so there’s uncounted time.”

“We should move him,” said Blue.

“I wanna see if he falls over first,” said Ronan.

Blue gave Ronan an impatient and disapproving look and swatted the stopwatch out of his hand. Ronan snorted.

“Gansey,” said Blue softly. “Gansey.”

Gansey was sleeping sitting up, hunched over his model of Henrietta. A wall that belonged to the movie theatre on Main Street was still in his hands.

Blue crouched down in front of Gansey. His head was filled to the side slightly. He slept with his mouth open and his eyes fluttering. Blue put her hands on Gansey’s shoulder to brace him. He’d be upset if he woke up to find he’d crushed part of his town without meaning to.

“Gansey,” she said again, and Gansey’s eyes started to flutter open.

“Hm?” said Gansey. He jerked and nearly fell forward, getting used to holding up his own body again. Blue held on to his shoulders.

“You fell asleep,” said Blue. “In your town.”

Gansey blinked tiredly, his contacts irritating him. “Jesus,” he said. “Did I?”

“Go take your contacts out,” said Blue.

Gansey nodded and retreated to the bathroom. Blue and Ronan, despite their rock-solid, ride-or-die friendship, still had no idea how to be in a room alone together. They were rarely without Noah and never without Gansey. With Gansey in the other room and nothing to occupy the silence, the atmosphere in Monmouth quickly became tenuous and uncomfortable.

“Do you look like that on purpose?” asked Ronan, referring to Blue’s mismatched clothing.

“Do you?” asked Blue, referring to Ronan’s dirty tank top and shaved head.

Gansey returned to the main room. “Can’t I leave you alone for two seconds?” he said. He was still blinking with irritation.

“Didn’t you take your contacts out?” asked Ronan.

“These are new ones,” said Gansey. “I’m just still waking up.”

Gansey shut his eyes tight, resisting the urge to rub his eyes. It might make some of the itching go away, but it also ran the risk of the lens folding or scratching his cornea. He wasn’t especially interested in wearing an eye patch while it healed. He couldn’t stand to go through another round of Ronan’s pirate based humour. It was more than enough the first time.

“Is Noah around?” asked Blue. “Doesn’t he live here now or something?”

“Practically,” said Gansey. “But I thought he stayed at yours last night. That, or the dorms.”

“He hates sleeping in the dorms. I don’t know why he goes back,” said Ronan.

“I think it’s sweet,” said Blue.

They all knew why Noah kept staying over in the dorms even though he preferred to sleep at Monmouth - his mother was paying for housing along with his tuition, and Noah felt guilty if the thousands of dollars she was spending went to waste. So, even though he hated the involuntary intimacy of the dorms, he slept there at least three times a week. It made Blue proud of him, and it made her feel a little safer to hang around Aglionby boys to know that at least one of them cared about where their money was going. Ronan, on the other hand, loved wasting money, halfway between not caring about money and using it to get back at people. Ronan Lynch could make anything a dick move if he tried.

“He didn’t come to Fox Way last night,” said Blue. “He called from Gansey’s phone. I assumed he was here.”

“He left a little after he called you,” said Gansey, worry twinging at the edge of his voice.

“He’s fine,” said Ronan definitively. “He probably just went off with those dumb skater shitheads.”

Blue and Gansey mulled this over. Noah often got swept up with some of the Aglionby stoners. They had the power to occupy large portions of Noah’s brain at once, and sometimes Noah lost track of time with them. More than that - he would lose track of hours, then days. Ronan hated this. He thought Noah wasn’t the same person around them as he was around the stoners and it made Ronan sick. Noah could shut down any argument about this by mentioning Kavinsky, not because Ronan was different around Kavinsky, but because Ronan wasn’t willing to talk about Kavinsky. Sometimes, when Ronan kept Noah up with worry after being out too late racing and palling around with Kavinsky, Ronan could pull apart the comparison and tuck the slivers into his chest. It was possible, Ronan thought, that he didn’t know Noah all that well. The mornings following nights like this would always consist of Ronan taking Noah out to breakfast.

“Cool it,” said Gansey. He blinked several times. “I don’t think contacts are going to work today.”

“Where are your glasses?” said Blue. Gansey shrugged and gestured noncommittally to the area surrounding his bed.

“You’re a fucking wreck, Dick,” said Ronan. Blue shushed Ronan, but smiled anyway.

“You find your glasses,” said Blue, pointing at Gansey. “I’ll text Noah to meet us at Nino’s instead of here. Ronan, make sure Gansey doesn’t break his glasses while he looks for them.”

“Aye aye,” said Ronan. It took everything in her power for Blue to resist shoving Ronan over.

\---

Noah wasn’t at Nino’s. He wasn’t there when they got there. He wasn’t there after twenty minutes. He wasn’t there when they ordered, or when the pizzas came out of the oven, or even when they landed on the table. They sat around for several minutes, thinking that Noah might pop up out of the woodwork and they could all eat together, but after the pizza began to cool past the desired temperature, Gansey took a dejected and forlorn bite.

“Did he text you back at least?” asked Gansey. His mouth was full of avocado.

“No,” said Blue. “Look - do you think something’s wrong with him?”

“I think plenty of things are wrong with him,” said Ronan.

“You’re such a dick, Ronan Lynch,” said Blue.

“Is this news?” said Ronan. He took a fierce bite of pizza and Blue held satisfaction in that she did _not_ flinch or recoil at the sight of Ronan’s bullshit.

“Maybe,” said Gansey, ignoring Ronan. “He might have just gotten swept away, though.”

“With the shitheads,” said Ronan.

“Yes, we all know you’re possessive of your friends,” said Blue. “Can’t you mix it up once in a while? Be a little original?”

Ronan made dead eye contact with her and shoved another slice of pizza in his mouth. Blue wrinkled her nose.

“I think we should consider the possibility that he’s spending time with that boy he likes,” said Gansey. “He’s gotten caught up with him before. We should keep in mind that it hasn’t even been a full day. Perhaps we’re becoming codependent.”

“Codependent?” Ronan scoffed. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“You both suck,” said Blue. “Both of you. Forever.”

\---

Noah didn’t know where he was. Or, he did, but everything was wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

He remembered the creature, a horrible thing with a blooming flower for a mouth - that is, if flowers were overwhelmingly covered with sharp teeth of varying sizes. He remembered it’s breath on his shoulder. He remembered passing out. That said, by some miraculous, beautiful twist of fate, he had evaded the jaws of death that had chased him through the trees. He had also, by a similar string of good luck and pure will, managed to reach the other side of the woods. He escaped from the pull of the trees - which, for certain brief seconds, seemed to be whispering to him - into the main street of Henrietta.

Or that’s what he had to assume happened. He couldn’t exactly remember. His foot was in another hole. He pulled it out and, to his sincerest surprise, watched a grey-white membrane close up over the hole. It was about human-sized, the kind of thing a person could crawl through, and Noah was transfixed by the speed and off puttingly biological manner in which the hole fixed itself. He stared at it until his eyes began to blur. Then he blinked and began to look around.

It looked like a bomb had gone off. Maybe not a bomb. Perhaps a contagion? Or a natural disaster? Everything here was recognizable as Henrietta, but it was all off-color. _He_ felt off-color, even more than he normally did. He was covered in cold sweat and grime, and the buildings he could remember so clearly as being light yellow with southern light and dusty with rural charm were all suddenly grey and unforgiving, covered in something like damp ash, bound by thick vines and some inorganic growth.

He felt like he needed an oxygen mask just to stand there. The snow was still falling, but he was beginning to suspect it wasn’t snow. It flew in the air, twisting and turning and falling, but the air felt stagnant and humid, like there was no wind. No movement.

He trudged through the town, gripping his skateboard tightly. He held it in front of him like he was brandishing a weapon or shield. He couldn’t imagine there was a creature here that could be successfully vanquished with a skateboard - except, possibly, for him - but he couldn’t stomach the possibility of going down without a fight.

He felt bare and naked walking down the middle of the street like this, but he was suspicious of what he might unearth if he tried to hide in and around buildings. He wished he could skateboard at least - he would be able to move quicker, sliding down the main road to be out of the open faster - but those vines, pulsing ropes made of something Noah had never seen before, were criss-crossing over the pavement.

There wasn’t another soul in sight. Noah was, to the best of his understanding, completely alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Gansey,” said Blue.
> 
> “Jane,” said Gansey. “Did you get Caller-ID while I wasn’t looking?”
> 
> Blue twisted the cord of the landline around in her fingers anxiously. “Yeah, it’s called living with psychics.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost every comment and message i got on this was about adam so i think you'll all be happy to know he is finally introduced in this chapter! also sorry this chapter is a bit longer than normal? i generally try to get my chapters to be around 10 pages, but this one was a line or two over 15. also! i wrote the fic out of order originally and ive been trying to put it all in the correct order, so im really sorry if some things seem out of place.  
> heads up! adams parents are in this one! theres no violence, but there is threat of violence? like, no one gets hit, but its not for lack of trying?

Adam Parrish was beginning to regret the decisions that brought him to Henrietta. Nothing was familiar here. He had thought he might recognize something, like stepping across town lines would electrify him and he’d know he was at home. He thought the dirt might remember him. But when he crossed town lines - when he put the _Welcome to Henrietta_ sign behind him and could be considered firmly within bounds - he felt nothing. It was possible, he thought, that he’d never actually touched dirt here. He’d been an infant. He probably never touched anything in Henrietta except for the arms of other people and whatever bin he slept in.

As he walked, he ran over his file in his head. He’d been born in Henrietta. His mother and father lived together in a trailer. Someone had given him up - the file said “donated”, actually - to the laboratory. Then, there was a list of treatments and experiments that Adam could remember just fine himself. He didn’t need the footnotes.

He thought about the man at the diner in the last town. He’d been sweet. He’d offered to give Adam a ride to Henrietta and everything, but he had declined. Adam had managed to frighten himself out of it - when he’d placed his order, he’d given the man the name “Adam Parrish” and he worried it would set off red flags of some kind. He knew it was crazy. It wasn’t like there were little microphones in the saltshakers, and it wasn’t like their wake words were his name, but he’d spent an awful long time running and hiding from people who would certainly be willing to pull that kind of crap.

Even so, it was stupid to use the name in any official capacity. Adam Parrish was supposed to have died in the late 90s, shortly after his birth. He couldn’t be walking around with that name. He knew that. He was only testing it out, really. He’d never gotten to call himself by his given name. Adam had spent so much time going by numbers and nicknames, things that were dehumanizing or things he had to pick himself that he was exhausted by the prospect of coming up with another name just to get a hamburger. Besides, he was going to have to use it when he met his parents. He wondered what it would be like to not even think about his name, to have been the person his parents thought he was going to be - a person called Adam.

He wondered if his parents ever thought about him. He wondered if they worried about him, if they’d given him away on purpose. He wondered if they’d wanted to keep him. He wondered if his dad missed him or if he would have been a disappointment. He wondered if his mom loved him or if she couldn’t bear to look at him, and that’s why he was sent away. He’d spent a lot more time worrying after his mother than his father - the man at the laboratory always called himself his _papa_ and he hadn’t thought to contest it as a lie until he found his file under the floorboards. He knew his mother was out there - his father, though, he hadn’t been expecting. Adam felt itchy with guilt about it. He wondered if his parents would ever forgive him for his carelessness.

\---

“Gansey,” said Blue.

“Jane,” said Gansey. “Did you get Caller-ID while I wasn’t looking?”

Blue twisted the cord of the landline around in her fingers anxiously. “Yeah, it’s called living with psychics.”

“Of course,” said Gansey. Blue could hear him chiding himself over nothing over the phone.

“Do you need something?” asked Blue.

“Is Noah there?”

Blue stopped twisting the telephone cord. “You mean he still isn’t with you? You still haven’t seen him?”

“We thought he might still be with that boy he likes,” said Gansey. “Or possibly skipping with Ronan, but Ronan was in Latin today and Noah wasn’t with him. I saw the stoners smoking behind the bleachers, and they haven’t seen him either.”

“Gansey,” said Blue. “I think - Do you think -”

“I don’t know what to think,” said Gansey. “He could be with his family.”

“He wouldn’t just disappear,” said Blue.

“Maybe something happened and he had to go home,” said Gansey. “I don’t know. I don’t want to alarm the Czerny’s if I call and he isn’t there.”

“If you call and he isn’t there, then we _should_ be alarmed,” said Blue. “It’s been _days_ , Gansey. Christ. We should have said _something_ by now.”

There was a beat of silence. Both Gansey and Blue were grappling with blurry memories of vague statistics on missing kids and teenagers. They swam through milk carton kids and reruns of _Law and Order_. They could feel something growing in each other, a gross, terrifying pit of dread and disgust in their stomachs.

“I’m going to hang up,” said Gansey. “I’m going to call the Czerny’s, and then I’m going to call you right back.”

“Is Ronan there?” asked Blue.

“He’s out,” said Gansey.

Blue knew what that meant. Ronan was out ruining himself, or running himself into the ground, or driving himself crazy, or just _driving_ , and he wasn’t talking to Gansey about it. Bizarrely, Gansey sounded disappointed in _himself_ for this, not Ronan. Blue wanted to hit Ronan for making Gansey sound like that.

“Then I’ll call Ronan,” said Blue. “Even if we both know he’s an old man who can’t use a cell phone.”

Gansey laughed sharply. Blue’s heart ached on his behalf.

“It’ll be okay, Jane,” said Gansey softly.

“I know that,” said Blue. “Don’t you think I know that? I just want to skip to the part where it’s finally okay.”

“I’ll call the Czerny’s,” said Gansey.

Then there was a click, and a dial tone. Blue dialed Ronan, got voicemail immediately, and looked around for something in close enough distance to kick. Finding nothing she wouldn’t regret breaking later, Blue twisted the cord of the telephone around and around in her fingers. She gnawed at the edge of her lip. When the phone rang again, Blue’s hand shot out for the telephone before she could even ask it to. The receiver was at her ear in less than a second.

“Hello?” she said, sitting with her back straight.

“Did Ronan answer?” asked Gansey.

“Of course not,” said Blue, huffing a little. “Did you get the Czerny’s?”

“They don’t know where he is,” said Gansey. “They haven’t seen him since they were at Aglionby a few weeks ago.”

“Shit, Gansey,” said Blue. “Fuck. _Fuck!_ ”

“I know,” said Gansey. “I’m - Christ, I’m so sorry Blue.”

“What the hell are you sorry for?” said Blue.

_I wanted to find him for you_ , thought Gansey. _I wanted to get my friend back. I wanted us to stop feeling this way. I wanted Ronan to answer his phone_.

Instead of that, Gansey said, “I don’t know. I’m just so, so sorry.”

“He’s not gone,” said Blue. “He’s just - I don't know. Out of place.”

“Misplaced,” said Gansey.

“In a lost and found bin,” said Blue.

“Somewhere, there’s a minimum wage employee making an announcement in the mall asking for the guardians of one Noah Czerny to please come and pick him up from the sunglasses kiosk,” said Gansey.

“That’s us,” said Blue, starting to sniffle. The outermost edges of her voice were beginning to collapse in on themselves. “The guardians of Noah Czerny.”

“It’s only been a few days,” said Gansey reassuringly. “At this point, it’s still possible we’ve just missed him somehow.”

“Do you believe that?” said Blue. As her mind thought it, the question was biting and angry - not at Gansey or Noah, but at the idea that her friend was missing. As she said it, her voiced wrapped around the words like it though it might be true.

“I believe we don’t have all the data,” said Gansey. “So, I guess I believe it has to be possible.”

“But you don’t think that’s the case,” said Blue flatly.

“I’m afraid my judgement is clouded by bias and emotion,” said Gansey.

“It’s okay,” said Blue, pulling at the ends of her curls. “I don’t believe it either.”

\---

None of the Czerny family had seen Noah since the last family weekend. Mr. Czerny was furious with Gansey and Ronan for letting Noah stay with them so frequently and for letting him run off with distasteful boys. The gang, having alerted the Czerny’s of their sons disappearance and having already given their statements to the police, retired with heavy, tired shoulders to Monmouth Manufacturing.

“What does he want you to do?” said Blue angrily. She was furious with Mr. Czerny for insinuating that they had done anything wrong in being friends with Noah. “He’s all pissed off because you don’t leave his son alone, and then he’s all pissed off because you leave his son alone.”

"I'll arm wrestle him if you guys want," said Ronan. "Really teach that fucker a lesson."

"Do not," said Gansey. "He's just in shock."

" _Fuck_ shock," said Ronan. "He's got no business talking to you like you're some halfwit babysitter."

Gansey, who was looking weary and old, rubbed his nose underneath his glasses.

“I can only take care of so many people at once,” said Gansey. “And I let him slip through the cracks.”

“You don’t have to take care of anyone, dumbass,” said Ronan. “Don’t treat us like kids.”

“You _are_ kids,” said Gansey.

“So are you,” snapped Ronan.

“You’re both assholes,” said Blue.

Gansey’s face contorted into something mildly offended. Ronan’s eyes grew somehow more intense. There was a barbed retort on the tip of Ronan’s tongue, Blue could sense it.

“You both do this,” said Blue, firmly exasperated. “You tug each other around like cat toys. Ronan, if you don’t want Gansey to take care of you, you should try acting like an adult every once in a while. Gansey, you’re mature, but still a kid. A mature kid is not an adult. And _both_ of you - it’s okay to need help and to give it, but don’t be such whiny assholes about the roles you’ve carved out for yourselves.”

“Jesus,” said Gansey. Ronan tugged on his bracelets.

“Noah is missing,” said Blue. “Actually, truly missing, and you fools can’t do anything but self-pity and snap at each other.”

“Sorry, Jane,” said Gansey.

“Sorry, Blue,” said Ronan. He said it so truthfully that it caught Blue and Gansey off-guard.

“Jesus,” said Blue. “I don’t think you’ve ever said my name before.”

“I don’t think he’s ever apologized before,” said Gansey.

“Yuck it up, dickheads,” said Ronan. “What are we going to do about Noah?”

“What do you mean?” said Blue. “Mrs. Czerny called the police. We gave our statements.”

“Don’t tell me we’re just gonna sit here,” said Ronan. “Come on. Isn’t our whole thing supposed to be finding lost boys?”

“I resent the description of Glendower being reduced to a ‘lost boy’, but I see your point,” said Gansey. He stood up, and suddenly the combination of his khakis, glasses, and teal polo shirt made him seem like he knew what he was talking about. “This cannot be a true meeting of our party without Noah, but I propose we postpone the search for Glendower in favor of searching for Noah.”

“Seconded,” said Ronan. “The feds are idiots. They don’t have our gumption.”

“No one tell my mom,” said Blue. For the first time since Noah had gone missing, since she realized he wasn’t going to show up at her house like they’d talked about on the phone, she felt like she could do something. She would kick in the doors to the Oval Office if it got Noah back. Hell - she’d throw open the Pearly Gates themselves if Noah was on the other side.

\---

When Maura met Richard Gansey the Third, she didn’t like or trust him. It wasn’t his fault, not really. He just so happened to exude a vibe that put her on edge. She got the impression that he was more reckless than he generally let on, and therefore more dangerous than anyone thought he was. Not that she thought he was malicious - he wasn’t - but she suspected he operated like a tornado. Gansey could suck people in, unwillings and storm chasers alike, and they’d all follow him to hell.

Blue, of course, was smitten with him. Maura tried to soothe herself with scented candles and long baths. At the very least, the two of them could agree that Ronan was rather sharp around the edges and the kind of person anybody should be careful with. The only one she really liked was Noah.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to look for that boy,” said Maura.

“I-” said Blue.

“No,” said Maura. “Don’t _tell me_. I like that boy. Don’t tell me a thing.”

Blue wished that, for once in her goddamn life, somebody around her would say something that made any kind of sense.

“I’m not looking for Noah,” said Blue. The lie was sticky as it came out of her mouth and it stuck on her teeth like taffy.

“Don’t lie to me instead,” said Maura. “All I said was _not to tell me_. I’m trying to be a responsible parent.”

“This is very responsible,” said Orla, draping herself over the bannister. “This is the safest thing you could have your daughter doing.”

“I’m trying to be a _reasonable_ parent,” Maura corrected. “I’m trying to balance my emotions as a mother with the practical reality of my life.”

“Thank you,” said Blue.

“If you tell me you’re going to look for him, I’ll have to order you not to. I’m looking for plausible deniability,” said Maura.

“Do you know anything about him?” asked Blue. “Not that I’m looking. I’m just, you know, worried. About my friend.”

“Are you going to tell her?” said Persephone demurely. She was slumped down in an arm chair. She looked like she should have been smoking a cigarette, like the drowsy chaperone.

“Tell me what?” asked Blue.

“Persephone,” said Maura, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I’m going to paint my nails,” said Orla.

“I’ll help,” said Persephone.

“Nobody move,” said Blue. “Tell me what?”

“You know, Persephone,” said Maura. “That asking me questions like that in front of her effectively seals my fate.”

“It doesn’t seal his,” said Persephone.

“Tell me _what?_ ” said Blue, louder and angrier this time. “I have to know. If it’s about Noah, I have to know.”

“Are you very sure? You _have_ to know? Will you die if you don’t?” said Orla.

“You might,” said Blue. Then, softer: “He’s my best friend.”

Maura’s face constricted something awful. She smoothed it out.

“I saw him on the Corpse Road this year,” said Maura.

“ _What?_ ” screeched Blue.

“I don’t think he’s dead,” said Maura. “I’m sorry. Calm down.”

“He’s going to die,” said Blue. “If he isn’t already dead, he’s going to _die_.”

“He was only a flicker,” said Maura. “He kept twitching in and out, even with you there to amplify things. I don’t think the universe has made up it’s mind yet.”

“Or he’ll only be half-dead,” said Persephone. “He could be an in-between.”

“That is not a situation,” said Maura. Her brows furrowed and she struggled not to look so irritated with her family. “Do you know where Noah was born? Is he from here?”

“I don’t know,” said Blue. “I always - he boards at Aglionby. He always seemed like he was from somewhere else.”

“Everyone is from somewhere else,” said Orla. “Not to be cryptic, but how many people do you know who are really from the places they were born?”

“You can’t just say ‘not to be cryptic’ and think that’ll negate how cryptic your statement is,” said Blue.

“Blue,” said Maura. “I know it would be foolish to ask you not to worry, but I might ask you not to be rash.”

“I’m not,” said Blue. “I won’t be. Hypothetically.”

“Of course,” said Maura. “Hypothetically.”

\---

“Here is what we know,” said Gansey seriously. The three of them were standing on the outskirts of Gansey’s cardboard Henrietta, each on a different side. The far end, the side where Noah normally stood, was vacant.

“You look like a douchebag brandishing that thing,” said Ronan. He wasn’t wrong. Gansey was holding a long, red pointer stick, it’s gloved hand comical in the seriousness of the setting.

“Excuse me, I spent my allowance on that in the third grade,” said Blue. “Ever been to a Scholastic Book Fair?”

“What’s an allowance?” asked Ronan, deadpan.

“I’m going to kill you both,” said Gansey. “Or I’m going to find whoever has Noah, and I’m going to trade the two of you for him.”

“Alright, Dick,” said Ronan. “Here is what we know.”

“Yes,” said Gansey. “We know Noah was at Monmouth several nights ago. We know he made a phone call to Blue. We know he left to go to Fox Way -”

“No, we know he left,” said Ronan.

“Yeah, to come over to mine,” said Blue. “We were gonna watch _Halloweentown_.”

“I don’t know what the hell that is,” said Ronan. “I’m just saying maybe he didn’t really mean to go to your house. We just know he left.”

“He wouldn’t lie to me,” said Blue.

“You don’t know what _Halloweentown_ is?” said Gansey.

“I don’t think he lied,” said Ronan. “But maybe he went somewhere else first.”

“This town is the size of a thumbtack,” said Blue. “If he was out and about after dark like that, somebody would have seen him.”

“That has to be when he went missing,” said Gansey. Ronan and Blue looked startled. “Right? He went missing somewhere in the time it takes to get to Fox Way from right here.”

“God,” said Blue. “We sat on this information. We knew something was wrong, and we just waited.”

“It was the responsible thing to do,” said Gansey.

“Responsible doesn’t always mean right, Gansey,” said Blue. “I knew something was up when he didn’t get to my house in under twenty minutes. I knew something was up when I came to you guys the next morning. We just sat and waited because it was the responsible thing to do, and that responsibility might’ve killed Noah.”

“Hey,” said Ronan. “We didn’t kill Noah. This isn’t our fault. You can’t psych yourself out with this shit, thinking about how things could have gone differently.”

“But I _knew -_ ” said Blue.

“People don’t have to hurt other people, Sargent. When they do, it’s nobody's fault but their own,” said Ronan. “If Noah’s dead - and that’s the biggest fucking _if_ \- then he’s only dead because some bastard decided to make him dead or because there was an accident, not because you wanted to watch a movie with him. Jesus, are you gonna say Debbie Reynolds killed Noah? She’s in that movie. Maybe it’s _her_ fault.”

“I thought you didn’t know what _Halloweentown_ was,” said Blue.

“I can’t believe you know who Debbie Reynolds is,” said Gansey.

“I can’t believe I’m the only person who’s focused right now, Jesus,” said Ronan. “You two are making it hard to underachieve.”

“Well, we can’t have _that_ ,” said Blue. “Let’s get down to business, yeah?”

“Of course,” said Gansey. “As I was saying -”

\---

The trailer wasn’t especially hard to find. It was staring him in the face and he knew as soon as he stepped onto the lot that he’d made a mistake. Maybe he’d known it since he’d started down the driveway into the park. Maybe since he’d gone down the main street. Maybe he’d known it since he crossed town lines and felt nothing. Wherever this was - this place he was from - he wasn’t supposed to be here. Adam could smell danger a mile away by the time he was three, and this place reeked of it. Still, he hadn’t travelled about six-hundred miles for nothing. Shit, he’d gone through _Ohio_ to get here. He at least had to see what it was like here, even if he didn’t talk to anyone.

Adam stood outside the double-wide and didn’t move a muscle. That was one thing Adam was good at - keeping his body very, very still.

He ran over the file again. He was born in Henrietta to a Robert and Alice Parrish. They lived in a double-wide trailer in Henrietta, Virginia. Robert built things in different factories and Alice was often a cashier or a waitress, and even more often nothing at all. Adam had been donated to a laboratory.  Then he wasn’t Adam anymore. Then there were tests and experiments and things Adam could remember on his own.

“Get off my lawn,” said a gruff voice.

First, Adam thought that calling the loose tufts of grass surrounding the trailer a _lawn_ was being both generous and naive. Then he thought, _Robert Parrish_. Adam felt his body freeze with shock without his permission, his lips going slack and parting with the weight of the reality in front of him. That was his father hanging halfway out of the front door of the trailer. He was large in some ways and small in others, unsteady on his feet, and with aggressive-looking hands and arms. The features of his face were small and beady, and they faded into the rest of the skin on his face the way that the features of old, half-drunk people often do. Altogether, Robert Parrish looked as though he’d been drawn in the office of a school counselor as a child’s worst nightmare.

“Are you deaf?” said Robert Parrish. “I said to _beat it_.”

_I am_ , thought Adam. _In one ear_.

Adam cleared his throat. It had been a few days since he’d said anything to anyone.

“Are you Robert Parrish?” asked Adam. His voice was scratchy and scrawny with disuse. He tried to clear it again without making too much noise.

“Who wants to know?” said Robert Parrish.

“I’m Adam,” said Adam. “I’d like to have a conversation with you.”

Adam wasn’t sure if Robert recognized him as his son or not, but he had apparently decided this was enough polite conversation for one day. Robert turned back inside the double-wide, grumbling to himself as he latched the door.

Stung with the sudden realization that his last chance to understand what happened to him was locking the door, Adam jolted forward, bounding up to the door and giving several firm taps against it.

“Didn’t I tell you to get lost?” yelled Robert. Adam could see him watching a shitty TV through the screen door.

“Who’s that?” said a woman's voice.

“Some kid,” said Robert. “Some kid who should be _fucking off!_ ”

“I’m Adam,” said Adam.

“Adam who?” said the woman. Adam still couldn’t see her through the screen.

“Parrish,” said Adam. “I’m Adam Parrish.”

For a second, nobody moved. Then, everybody did. Both Robert and Alice Parrish were at the door within seconds. Adam did not have the time to fully take in the effect of seeing his mother for the first time. He registered her wiry hair and bony hands, and Adam tried to catalog everything he could, but Robert was back to yelling at him with rage behind his tongue.

“Who do you think you are?” Robert spat through the screen. “Adam Parrish is dead.”

“Nope,” said Adam. “I thought you knew that.”

“Adam,” said Alice. Tears were welling up in her eyes.

“Go sit down, Alice,” said Robert.

“I just have a few questions,” said Adam, who had finally given up on the dream of a family. He wanted to get in and out. It was very clear to him now - he hadn’t been stolen from anyone.

“Get off my lawn,” said Robert.

“What kind of questions?” asked Alice.

Robert Parrish turned around to face her. He looked like a bumbling villain through the haze of the screen. Robert raised his hand, and Adam tried desperately to gauge whether he was about to hit her or scold her. In the end, Adam wanted to be safe. Suddenly, Robert Parrish couldn’t move his hand. It was completely stationary midair, almost like it was lodged in between something. Alice stared at it, perplexed. Robert tried to jerk his hand out of the air and back into his command, but it wouldn’t budge. Then the sliding lock on the inside of the door slid open without anything touching it. Then the knob on the door turned and the door swung outwards, and then Adam Parrish was walking up to the empty doorway, wiping away the beginnings of a nosebleed with his handkerchief.

“I only have a few questions, Mrs. Parrish,” said Adam. “If you two would be willing to answer them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do you guys think???? PLEASE leave me a comment and let me know how you feel about this! if you dont want to leave a comment, consider sending me a message or ask on tumblr @putoriius! i really appreciate all the messages you guys send jfkldjsakfjdg


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I spent my childhood as a test subject,” he said plainly.
> 
> “That’s interesting,” said Alice. “For what? Childhood development?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas, if youre into that sort of thing! i am speed typing rn bc my family has just arrived and im supposed to go out and do christmas things, but i really really wanted to get this chapter up. that means im doing even less than the cursory once over i normally give chapters before uploading, so im really sorry if there are any weird typos or if its disorganized? anyway, i hope you like it!  
> ALSO! the parrish parents are in this chapter again! theres one hit, and its practically blink and you miss it. robert probably wont make anymore appearances but (spoiler?) alice will.

The Parrish’s had the conversation right there in the doorway. Alice had gotten pregnant. She and Robert had argued back and forth about keeping it until it was too late for an abortion. Some lady from some adoption agency had shown up at their doorstep, which Alice remembered very clearly, because apparently the lady “looked like she might as well be science fiction out here.” Adam had tried to press her for what this meant, but the glower on Robert’s face was growing ever darker. Adam dropped that thread.

“I don’t know how she knew,” said Alice. “I didn’t talk to all that many people. I don’t know how she even got our address. It didn’t matter anyway. They said - they said you were dead, just after you were born.”

Robert’s hands were twitching. Adam got the sneaking suspicion that Robert had some information he wasn’t sharing with the class.

“Do you have something you want to add, Mr. Parrish?” asked Adam.

“I don’t know where you get off calling me that,” said Robert.

“What am I supposed to call you?” said Adam.

“Don’t get smart with me,” said Robert. “My own flesh -”

“Am I your son now?” said Adam. “Do you want me to call you Dad?”

“Son of a  _ bitch _ ,” said Robert Parrish. He leapt up, and Adam felt the blow before it hit him. The sound of it rang through the trailer. Adam wasn’t sure if Robert was going to try again, but he held down his hands anyway. There was one thing Adam sure liked about his abilities - one on one, it was a lot harder to get hit.

“Thank you,” said Adam. “That’s all I needed.”

He turned to leave. He hopped out of the doorway and onto the grass, and then he started back down the driveway. He felt stupid for thinking he might have had a life outside of all of this running, that his parents could be sitting with bated breath at the idea of his return. He tried to look confident and strong as he walked away, like someone who was above the place he was in, but his cheeks were burning with shame. It was very clear to him now - he hadn’t be stolen from anything,  or at least not anything good. He was never supposed to have a childhood.

“Wait,” said Alice. She pushed around Robert and trotted after Adam into the drive.

“Yes?” said Adam.

“I didn’t want to keep you,” said Alice. “You would have messed everything up. But that doesn’t mean I’m not glad to see you’re alive.”

“It seems like things are pretty messed up around here without my help,” said Adam.

Alice pursed her lips. “Did they - did the agency at least take good care of you? Decent family?”

Adam balked at her. “I spent my childhood as a test subject,” he said plainly.

“That’s interesting,” said Alice. “For what? Childhood development?”

Adam couldn’t tell if she was misunderstanding on purpose or if her heart couldn’t take it. He didn’t know how a person could be so severely obtuse. Maybe she was just stupid. Maybe she was just mean. Regardless, Adam didn’t have the energy.

“Yeah,” said Adam. “Freud would have been proud.”

Then, he turned away from her before his face could betray him, and he stalked down the drive.

\---

Adam was sitting in some diner-ish place, desperately trying to mind his own business. He had yet to get over his own foolishness. How could he ever think there would be people out there waiting for him? The idea itself was idiotic.

He took a sip of his soda pop and grimaced. He had no idea what flavor it was. When the waitress had asked him what he wanted to drink, he’d told her to pick. He was still getting used to the idea of drinks with bubbles in them - he didn’t have them growing up.

“Can I get you something else to drink?” asked the waitress. “You don’t appear to be enjoying that Dr. Pepper.”

“This drink is called Dr. Pepper?” asked Adam. That was a stupid name for a drink.

She squinted at him. “You’ve never had a Dr. Pepper?”

Adam shrugged. “Didn’t drink pop much as a kid,” he said.

“Do you want something else?” she asked again.

“Nah,” said Adam. “Seems like a shame to waste it.”

The waitress nodded. “Your fries will be out shortly.”

Once he was alone again, Adam began to leaf through his file. He tucked his hair - now long enough to curl at the edge of his jaw - behind his ears. He was going to have to get it cut soon. He hated the sound of clippers against his skull, but he also hated having hair this long. He couldn’t make himself feel right in his own body, not even with his hair. Everything on him was pasted together without his approval. He didn’t fit inside of it.

He wasn’t sure what he was looking for anyway. He’d found his parents. He’d met them. That was the whole point of coming to Henrietta. He didn’t need to be here anymore, only he wasn’t sure what the hell else he was supposed to do. Find a job? Start a life? Adam had the sneaking suspicion he’d be in hiding until he died. He couldn’t imagine that the people in Indiana - the ones who were dead now - were the only people responsible. He couldn’t imagine that they were even in charge.

“One order of fries,” said the waitress. She went to set them on the table and stopped herself at the last second. “What’s all this?”

Adam had gotten lost in his own head. Half the papers in his file were spread out across the booth and he scrambled to sweep them up before the waitress could read anything important.

“Nothing,” said Adam. “Thank you. For the fries.”

The waitress pursed her lips at him. She didn’t seem entirely convinced, and a reality in which this small town waitress turned him in to the authorities flashed before his eyes.

“Alright,” she said, finally setting the fries down on the table. “Here you go. Can I do anything else for you?”

Suddenly, Adam realized she was pretty. It happened sometimes - things he’d missed out on learning (like what being pretty was) would hit him in the face at one hundred miles per hour and confuse him.

“No, thanks,” he said. And then: “I like your hair.”

She reached up and skated her hand along the side of her head. Her hair was mostly wild and unkempt, clipped over to one side, but this edge was completely shaved.

“Thank you,” she said. “I do it myself.”

They both stayed there for a moment, unsure if this was the end of the conversation or not. Adam wasn’t especially inclined to make conversation with people he didn’t know and the waitress didn’t seem inclined to like her patrons. But there they stayed.

“It’s nice,” Adam said finally. He gestured to his own head. “I need a haircut soon myself.”

“I could do it,” said the waitress. She looked irritated with herself as soon as the words left her mouth. Her face scrunched up in a way that Adam felt mimicked in his own chest.

Before he could stop himself, Adam said, “Sure.”

\---

Blue wasn’t sure exactly how she’d gotten this boy in her backyard. Well - she knew. She’d asked him to come with her at the end of her shift. She just wasn’t sure was force had possessed her to made her ask him. Maybe it was his eyes. They were blue as anything and sparkled like crystal. They stood out against his dark skin in a truly magnificent way. The eyes, Blue thought, had doomed her from the moment she saw them.

To be fair, the boy didn’t seem entirely at ease with himself either. They shared grimaces with each other on the walk from Nino’s to Fox Way, and it seemed like he was only a loud noise away from startling himself into oblivion.

But here they were. Blue had ushered him into the backyard, holding out hope that nobody in the house had foreseen the boy’s arrival and that nobody was going to come outside and interrogate them.

“Stay here,” she said, placing him underneath a tree. “Do you want me to use clippers or scissors?”

The boy blinked at her like he hadn’t even considered it. Christ. His eyes were so, so blue.

“Scissors,” he said. “If that’s alright. I know it goes faster if you use the clippers.”

Blue shrugged. “Some people don’t like the noise,” she said. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to grab the scissors.”

He nodded. He didn’t seem inclined to make further conversation. Just before she got to the back door, she stopped.

“What’s your name?” she called to him.

“Adam,” he said. He didn’t give his last name.

“Adam,” she said. “I’m Blue.”

“Cool name,” said Adam.

Blue smiled. She was thankful that, for once in her life, someone hadn’t just said  _ oh, like the color? _

\---

“We know about the boy in the backyard,” said Calla. “You can stop pretending to hide him. Orla saw him coming this morning.”

“Do you have to sneak up like that?” asked Blue. She was rummaging through kitchen drawers for scissors.

“I’m not meddling,” said Calla. “He can help you.”

“Yeah?” said Blue. She was only paying half attention. She’d feel guilty for it later if she remembered, but she was tired of household antics for the moment. She  was more interested in scissors, which she found underneath a bag of old rubber bands.

“He doesn’t know where Noah is, but he can find him,” said Calla.

Blue dropped her scissors back in the drawer.

“He what.” said Blue flatly.

“Be gentle with him,” said Calla. “That’s not why he’s here. He doesn’t know about your quest.”

“Don’t call it a quest,” said Blue.

“Go cut his hair,” said Calla. “He needs it. Orla will be cross. She thinks he looks like a pirate like this.”

“Pirates didn’t brush their teeth,” said Blue.

“They were rugged, though,” said Calla.

“Ugh,” said Blue. She wrinkled her nose.

\---

Blue held her tongue during the haircut, but it was a close thing. By the time Adam was sitting in front of her, hair closely cropped on the back and sides of his head, Blue was nearly bouncing off the walls.

“I appreciate this,” said Adam.

“It’s nothing,” said Blue. “I can already see places it’s uneven.”

“It’s better than it was a half hour ago,” said Adam, smiling. He ran his hands through his hair, fingers catching at the short ends of the strands. This is how it was supposed to be.

“Do you know Noah?” Blue blurted out.

Adam looked confused. “Noah?”

“My friend,” said Blue. “I thought you might know him.”

“I’m not from around here,” said Adam, “Or, I am, but not really.”

“I know,” said Blue.

“You know,” said Adam. He looked serious all of a sudden, like storm clouds were settling in his cerebrum.

“You’d never had a Dr. Pepper,” said Blue. “‘Course you aren’t from here.”

A sigh left Adam’s body. His shoulders were drawn up like they couldn’t decide if they were stressed or relieved.

“Why do you think I would know your friend?” asked Adam.

“Calla said you would know something,” said Blue. “She said Orla saw you coming this morning.”

Wind flew through the backyard. It whistled through the trees and played with the hem of Blue’s skirt. It ticked at the back of Adam’s neck. Adam tried to swallow what Blue had just told him, and Blue tried to guess what went on in his mind.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Adam. “But I think I’d better go.”

He stood fairly slowly, with the practiced stillness of someone who had to move with caution, someone who could spook other people into action just by moving too quickly. Blue didn’t know what Adam thought she might do to him, but she filed the intent of his movements away for further analysis.

“Wait, Adam,” said Blue. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I’m not frightened,” said Adam.

_ Yes, you are _ , thought Blue.

“Noah is missing,” said Blue. “My - Calla said you might know something. She doesn’t know how vague she’s being, sometimes. Maybe you don’t know specifics.”

“I don’t know any Calla. I can’t imagine she knows anything about me. Maybe you’ve got the wrong Adam,” he said. He ran his hand through his hair again. “What do you mean she saw me coming?”

“Orla,” said Blue. “She’s psychic. They’re all psychic.”

“But not you,” said Adam.

“Not me,” said Blue.

“How did they get that way?” asked Adam. His brow furrowed, and he looked less frightened and more curious. No, Blue thought. Curious wasn’t the right word. Serious. Speculative. He looked towards the house like he might know somebody inside it.

“Huh?” said Blue. Nobody had ever asked her that before. Most people she met already knew her family were psychics and had drawn their own opinions. The rest were skeptics.

“How’d they become psychic?” asked Adam.

“They just are,” said Blue. “There’s no training program. You’re just born with it.”

Adam rolled his lower lip with his teeth.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” he said. “Just be born with it.”

“What?” said Blue. “No. Tell me on the way.”

“Way where?” asked Adam.

“I’m taking you to meet my friends,” said Blue. She tried to hold eye contact with him, to convince him that she wouldn’t take him anywhere he didn’t want to go, but he already seemed resigned to the idea of being shuffled around. It was a bizarre one-eighty - two seconds ago, she was sure she would have spent the next few days looking for him after he bolted. Now, he seemed almost willing to go with her, or maybe to observe her as she went.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Sure,” said Adam. He eyed her with intent, like he was trying to decode something on her forehead. “Okay.”

\---

Being stagnant did not suit Adam Parrish. The hour and a half he had spent in Nino’s leafing through his file had encouraged a sick, churning feeling in his stomach. As long as he could remember - as long as he could let himself remember - he’d had some kind of drive. Get out. Get away. Protect - someone. Find parents. Now, he didn’t have anything to run towards. There was only away, and he was as far away as he imagined he would get. Now there was only air, and he was suspended in it.

But this girl was running towards something, albeit haphazardly and with undirected steps. Adam wasn’t in the business of trusting anyone, but Blue seemed brutally honest. Adam couldn’t shake the feeling that she was onto something here. Something big.

Regardless, Adam had frankly no business running off with strange girls who knew odd details. If his past luck was any indication, Adam was about to die. He guessed it didn’t really matter, since his whole plan, the reason he’d come to Henrietta in the first place, was a failure. He thought again about his future, about getting a job and starting a life for himself outside of experimentation. His brain offered him plain static and void - there was no future as far as Adam could see.

Apparently the walk to her friend’s place was a bit longer than the walk to and from Nino’s and Fox Way, and once they got into town Blue used the phone in the Nino’s office to call her friend Gansey. Adam could hear her murmuring things into the receiver, catching words like  _ Adam _ and  _ Noah _ and  _ Calla said _ .

“He’ll come pick us up,” Blue told him. “I want you to meet him. And Ronan too, if he promises to play nice.”

Adam didn’t know what the hell that meant. Blue didn’t seem to be in a hurry to explain anything to him.

Adam examined her mismatched exterior. Blue looked miraculous and cool to the touch. Her brow was set to be confident. She leaned against the wall and examined Adam right back. When Adam got lucky, he could look at her eyes while she was looking at something else, and those were the moments when all the puzzle pieces could fall into place. The incessant jerking of her leg, the way she tapped her fingers, the unkempt fervor in her eyes - Blue was more nervous than Adam was. Blue had hope riding on this. Adam didn’t have anything. If this didn’t turn into anything, Adam could walk right back into the horizon line.

Eventually, an engine roared outside. Adam let himself be led to the front of the shop where a completely garrish vehicle was waiting for him. The car itself was not surprising - the engine sounded like a piece of shit, and the car was clearly a piece of shit. It was a grotesque orange, dented in a few places, and looked a thousand years old. The surprising thing was the boy attached to the shitty car.

He was tall - not as tall as Adam, but tall - and he had tanned skin and clear eyes. He wore khakis and a salmon polo shirt - a combination that Adam had only seen in stolen clothing catalogues and in houses his friends - companions, partners, whatever - in Chicago had broken in to. Adam suspected that if you peeled the boy’s skin back, you’d just find more khaki underneath. He looked profoundly stupid in his boat shoes, but Adam was hard-pressed to superimpose any other type of footwear onto him.

If pressed, Adam would never match this particular boy to this particular car. They did not exist in the same reality, much less belong to one another.

“Gansey, I’d like you to meet Adam,” said Blue. “Adam, this is Gansey.”

“Pleasure,” said Gansey, and he stuck his hand out to shake Adam’s.

Adam, who had only had to shake two hands ever in his life, failed to notice until it was already obvious that he was a hooligan. Even so, Gansey’s smile didn’t falter for a second.

“It’s nice to meet you,” said Adam, because that’s what people always said in books and TV shows.

“I told him I come from a family of psychics,” said Blue. “You know what he said?”

Gansey shook his head. He looked completely enraptured in her. Adam could understand why.

“He asked me how they got to be psychics. He said he didn’t know you could be born a psychic,” said Blue.

Gansey’s attention was shifted all at once to Adam.

“What a magnificent question to ask,” said Gansey. “Most people just ask her if she’s being serious.”

“To be fair, she offered me some evidence first,” said Adam.

“Did they give you a reading?” asked Gansey.

“A what now?” asked Adam.

“Boys,” said Blue. “As much as I love this little exchange, I’d much appreciate it if we could get in the car now.”

“Of course,” said Gansey.

“It’s a nice car,” said Adam, who wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette was in this situation. He regretted it as soon as it was out of his mouth - the car really was a piece of shit, and he didn’t especially enjoy lying if he wasn’t doing it for survival.

“Thank you,” said Gansey, his entire face brightening. “I love this car. I’m awful with them - Blue could tell you about all the times I’ve gotten stranded - but I can’t seem to give her up.”

“ _ Boys _ ,” said Blue. She was already halfway into the front seat.

Adam watched Gansey watch Blue. Gansey was clearly very impressed with the mere existence of someone like Blue - speaking frankly, Adam had to concur - and this admiration was only intensified by her doing any single thing. Apparently the mere sight of Blue getting into his car was enough to have Gansey swooning.

“Coming,” said Gansey.

Gansey slid into the driver’s seat easily. Adam had to jerk himself back into action and into the backseat, which was just a tad bit snug for his long legs. He observed Blue and Gansey grab straps from either side and pull them across their bodies. Though he’d seen them on television, the only automobiles Adam had ever been in were cabs and buses, and so he had never seen a seatbelt up close before. He hoped the way he fumbled with it more indicated social nervousness than a lack of knowledge.

Once everyone was safely buckled, Gansey pulled out of the Nino’s parking lot, and the trio rode towards Monmouth. In the backseat, Adam’s skin prickled with the feeling that he was getting himself into something out of his depth. He scratched absentmindedly at his forearms. In the front seat, Gansey eyed Adam through the rearview mirror, and tried to understand which parts of Adam made Gansey feel like something important was happening, like the meeting of the boy named Adam was the opening of a new gate.

Gansey drove towards Monmouth with extra caution, like he was carrying precious cargo. Blinking again at Adam through the mirror, Gansey suspected he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do you think?? i had some trouble conveying exactly the way i thought adam was processing things, so feel free to talk to me on tumblr @putoriius if you want me to explain further? also, i think im introducing another character next chapter!  
> please leave a comment! they are Essential


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hi, Adam,” said Ronan grudgingly. “Where did these two fooligans drag you in from?”
> 
> “They found me on the street,” said Adam dryly. “I had a soup can with a couple’a quarters in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god its been FOREVER! hello! as i type this, its just after four in the morning and i have a cold, so forgive me if this doesnt make like, the most sense? ive been doing some ridiculous editing because i foolishly decided to add a character to the narrative post-nanowrimo, so its taken a lot of re-planning. i hope the end product is passable, anyway.  
> also i decided to switch some things around, meaning the new character wont be introduced until next chapter! sorry! they're still coming, though.  
> anyway! this chapter is a bit shorter than i mean and a bit choppier than i'd have liked, but really, its just been such a long time since ive updated that i felt like i had to get something out there.

Ronan didn’t take kindly to Adam, but nobody expected him to. Ronan didn’t generally take kindly to new people in his space, or new people who were friends with Gansey, and every person he’d ever met who was friends with Blue was - well. They weren’t designed to get along, and on average, they didn’t. For this very reason, Gansey intercepted Ronan at the front door, leaning semi-nonchalantly against the doorframe. As Ronan approached, Gansey nodded politely at him, and then he nodded politely at the bird perched on Ronan’s shoulder.

“Gansey,” said Ronan.

“Ronan, hello,” said Gansey, like he was being introduced to Ronan for the first time. “I wanted to speak to you before you came in.”

“Are you hiding prostitutes,” said Ronan flatly. Gansey looked scandalized.

“ _ Ronan _ ,” said Gansey, hand ghosting his chest in shock. “Will you  _ please _ be serious for a single moment?”

“Sounds like a tall order,” said Ronan.

“Ronan,” said Gansey. “ _ Please _ .”

Ronan surveyed the situation. Here was Gansey, clad in khakis and a polo shirt, his hands knit together professionally with an expensive and obtrusive watch threatening to slide down his wrist, failing to look casual in front of the main door to Monmouth. He was a human blockade. If Ronan was really determined, he could probably push Gansey into the gravel and go inside anyway, but Gansey had never refused him entry into Monmouth. He was keen to find out why.

“I’ll bite,” said Ronan. He kept his voice safely in the back of his throat.

“I wanted to check in and see how you were doing today,” said Gansey, keeping his tone carefully close to his chest.

“I’m fine,” said Ronan. It came out sounding like a question.

“Are you sure?” asked Gansey.

“Gansey,” said Ronan. “What the hell is going on?”

“We have a guest,” said Gansey. “Be kind to him.”

“Do you know who you’re talking to?” said Ronan.

Gansey’s eyes flicked between Ronan’s face and Chainsaw’s beak. He remembered the nights Ronan had stayed awake - on purpose, for once - to make sure she was fed properly.

“Yes, I think I do,” said Gansey.

Ronan kicked a rock near his foot until it scuffed the side of Gansey’s shoe. Gansey blinked tiredly at him.

“Are you gonna let me in?” said Ronan. “Or am I not pleasant enough company.”

“I’m letting you in. I’m  _ asking _ you to come in,” said Gansey.

“You know you have to move out of the way for that to happen, right?” said Ronan.

“Please be nice,” said Gansey.

“I’m always nice,” said Ronan, tossing Gansey a smile that turned Gansey’s stomach upside down.

“Good,” said Gansey, nodding to himself. “Okay.”

\---

When Gansey and Ronan entered the room, Blue stood up out of nervousness. Adam had never sat down. Even Chainsaw ruffled her feathers. Ronan looked pointedly away from the newcomer. He didn’t want to risk anything about him being solidified in his memory banks. Instead of looking at the new boy, Ronan stared down Blue.

Blue was not to be swayed by him. Gansey couldn’t believe he’d managed to get the two most stubborn people in his life to exist in the same room together, much less get them to grudgingly befriend each other.

“This is Adam,” said Blue. “Say hi to him. Be polite.”

“I will not,” said Ronan. “How dare you.”

“Ronan,” said Gansey. He sounded grossly like his own father scolding a child. Ronan could hear the underlying  _ what did we just talk about _ in Gansey’s tone.

“Hi, Adam,” said Ronan grudgingly. “Where did these two fooligans drag you in from?”

“They found me on the street,” said Adam dryly. “I had a soup can with a couple’a quarters in it.”

“Hardy-har-har,” said Blue. “Adam’s from out of town. We think he can help us with Noah.”

“Really,” said Ronan.

“I maintain that I don’t know who Noah is,” said Adam.

“Gansey,” said Ronan, clipping his words. “How the fuck is this guy supposed to help us if he doesn’t even know who Noah is?”

“Orla saw him,” said Blue. “I say we throw spaghetti at him and see if something sticks.”

“Excuse me,” said Adam.

“It’s an expression,” said Gansey kindly.

Ronan ran his hand across his jaw in irritation and resisted the urge to bite at his leather bracelets. He couldn’t believe that Blue, their most rational member, was considering this bullshit. He couldn’t believe that Gansey, even as naive as he could be, was willing to let this complete stranger into their home, to share with him their secrets, to share Noah. Ronan, feeling an itch separate from his regular displeasure with new people, turned his back on Adam and took Gansey’s shoulder in his hand.

“Gansey,” said Ronan, pulling him close enough that he could whisper without Adam being able to hear. “I’m not sure about this.”

“He’s nice,” said Gansey. “And polite. Blue says he called her ‘ma’am’.”

“That doesn’t mean shit,” said Ronan.

“Ronan,” said Gansey quietly. “I don’t know what else to do.”

“It’s been, like, a day since we started-” said Ronan.

“It’s been, like, a  _ week _ , Ronan,” said Gansey, half mocking, half desperate. “I know it’s only been _maybe_ a day since we personally started looking, but Noah has been gone for about a  _ week _ . We’re running out of time. We can’t afford to let even the most obscure chances slip through our fingers.”

“We also can’t afford to fuck around with wastes of time,” said Ronan.

“Are either of you interested in sharing with the class?” said Blue. When Ronan looked at her over his shoulder, he was unsurprised to find her hands on her hips and her head cocked in annoyance.

Ronan turned his head back towards Gansey. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Orla said he helps,” said Gansey. “So, we can at least assume he doesn’t  _ hurt _ the operation.”

Ronan looked into Gansey’s eyes for a moment - not long enough to make Gansey, who was notorious for hating to suffer through prolonged eye contact, uncomfortable, but long enough to search them for the sincerity that Ronan already knew was there. Then, Ronan let go of Gansey’s shoulder and took a step back. He didn’t seem especially enthusiastic about turning away from Gansey to face Blue and Adam again, but he did it, and he tried his best to look threatening without being explicitly hostile. He gritted his teeth.

“Okay?” asked Blue.

“Okay,” said Ronan.

\---

Frankly, they didn’t have much spaghetti to throw in Adam’s direction. Nothing they had to say - about how long Noah had been missing, about what kind of a person Noah was, about the town itself - seemed to mean anything special to Adam. Gansey, who had often seen himself as specializing in finding things and categorizing research, was embarrassed by their lack of data. They couldn’t expect Adam to find Noah based on nothing. Realistically, they couldn’t expect Adam to find Noah at all. Gansey was caught between the rational understanding that Adam was a person like any of them, a person who had no idea who they were and had no obligation to work with them, and the desperate need to find Noah and to treat Adam unfairly, like a dowsing rod for lost boys.

“I wish I could help you,” said Adam. “But I honestly have no idea where he is. I don’t even know Henrietta.”

“Where are you from?” asked Gansey, feeling terrible impolite for putting Adam to work without even engaging in basic pleasantries.

“Well -” said Adam, shifting his weight. “I didn’t grow up here.”

“Ah,” said Gansey. He didn’t know what to do with a response like that. He flicked his eyes towards Ronan and saw him filing away Adam’s tone for later examination. Gansey could feel a headache coming on.

“So,” said Adam suddenly, and a tad loudly. “To be clear - you know approximately nothing.”

“That would be accurate, yes,” said Gansey.

“Great,” said Adam.

“Look,” said Blue, “The things my family says aren’t guarantees, but Orla wouldn’t have seen it - or said it - if it was completely wrong. It’s just - I think you could really help Noah. And I want to find out. So.”

“So,” said Adam.

“Will you?” asked Blue.

“We understand if you don’t have the time,” said Gansey. “I’m sure you didn’t come to Henrietta for this particular missing person’s case.”

Adam blinked at them. They looked hopeful and tired and stressed, and Ronan looked like he might bite Adam’s head off if he got too close to either Blue or Gansey, but even Ronan was looking at Adam like he was their last chance on earth. Nobody seemed inclined to explain the bird perched on Ronan’s shoulder, but Adam could tell - the bird, too, was invested. He got the impression that it could see right through him.

Adam considered his options and prospects - basically nonexistent and infirm, with the exception of this, an offer to do something good - and he found himself nodding.

“Does that nod mean ‘yes’?” asked Gansey.

“Yes,” said Adam. “Sure.”

\---

Sometimes, Noah could catch whispers of people he knew before he fell Wonderland-style through the ground to Somewhere Else. It didn’t happen especially often. In fact,  _ nothing _ happened especially often. He had only been in this horrible, grey version of Henrietta for a few days and he was already out of his skull with boredom.

The boredom surprised him when it hit. He had spent the first bit of his trip in the underworld terrified beyond belief. There had been nowhere to hide on the empty street and Noah had jumped and twitched with every rustling of noise. Even though he couldn’t find it in himself to trust any part of this place, he decided to hole up in the one place he knew best - Monmouth Manufacturing. He found his way to his room and pushed his bed into the far corner, away from the door. He knew there was no use in trying to wipe the dust and grime off of anything, but he felt like he ought to give it a shot, just to have something to do with his hands. Then, deeply unsatisfied with his work cleaning his room, he wrapped himself in blankets and nestled into the corner of his bed. He could feel that something was going to happen, and he’d be a lot safer (or at least, more comfortable) if he was cocooned.

Nothing happened. After being awake for a full twenty-four hours, Noah decided he couldn’t just sit and wait for something to happen. He ventured out into the world, all full of smoke and vines, and was promptly chased by something horrible and dinosaur like. His heart was beating in his fingertips and he could hardly catch his breath. He hadn’t run that hard since he was a kid. He used to run through the woods with Gansey at his heels, pretending they were dual Indiana Jones’s attempting to escape from a rolling boulder.

This wasn’t nearly as fun. This was petrifying. This was panic-inducing. When Noah slammed the door to Monmouth behind him, trapping the beast outside, he could hardly hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears. At the time, Noah had thought the fear was never going to leave him, that he would be stuck feeling like a prey animal for however long he had left to survive.

The boredom was awful, but it wasn’t worse than the fear. The fear he felt when he went outside was a rush, but it exhausted him, made him feel small and weak. The boredom came from hours of doing nothing on his bed within the confines of Monmouth. It was all tiring. This, Noah thought, was what hell was like - swinging back and forth between numbing boredom, total exhaustion, and incomprehensible fear over the course of hours or days. Noah wasn’t sure if he was dead or not, but he certainly couldn’t think of anything he’d ever done to deserve a hell like this.

And then, sometimes, he could hear whispers.

At first he thought he was losing it in isolation, though he didn’t think a few days was a reasonable amount of time to start losing your wit. He could hear his friends in muffled echoes, like through a closed door. He could hear them when he slept. He could hear Ronan's music during school hours. He could hear Gansey reading aloud to himself in the middle of the night. Eventually, when Noah could find nothing else to occupy his time and no evidence that the whispers were malevolent, he pressed his ear up against his bedroom door and listened.

“- can’t sleep,” said Gansey.

There was a pause that Noah knew was filled with Ronan shrugging.

“It’s late,” said Gansey, like that had ever stopped either Ronan or himself from being awake before.

“Wanna go for a drive?” asked Ronan.

Noah pulled his head off the wall in disbelief. They were  _ right there _ . They could  _ help him _ . This was all some bad dream, or a god-awful hallucination, but Gansey would be rational and practical and Ronan would move heaven and earth to help his friends, so Noah knew he was going to be okay. He just had to get to them. He made a sincere attempt to throw the door open, to walk out into the main floor of Monmouth, but the door wouldn’t budge. He gripped the doorknob with two hands and pulled. He pulled harder. He threw his weight as best he could, and there was nothing to show for it. The door didn’t even creak.

Noah changed tactics. He didn’t need to open the door if Ronan or Gansey could do it for him.He threw himself against the door, banging his fists like he was trapped in a cage. With each hit, the lights flickered around him as though Noah were jostling the batteries in a flashlight.

“Help!” he yelled. “Gansey! Ronan! Can you hear me?”

“What the hell?” he heard Ronan say.

“Maybe there’s a problem with a fuse,” said Gansey.

“Fuck!” yelled Noah. He hit the door again, and again, and again, and suddenly the lights went out completely. He gave the doorknob another try and flung himself into the open darkness of Monmouth. His breathing was hard and anguished, and his friends were nowhere to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! as usual, p l e a s e leave me comments and/or get in touch w/ me on tumblr @putoriius! i hope to have everything a bit more straightened out by the next time i update

**Author's Note:**

> comments?? peer recognition?? peer approval??? also, hang out with me on tumblr @putoriius!!


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